Welcome

to…
YOUR FIRST PART – START TO FINISH

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Another way is to choose
START, MECHANICAL
DESIGN, and then PART
DESIGN.

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There are a few different ways to begin
a Catia session. From the start-up
screen, choose FILE, NEW and then
PART.

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 THREE DIMENSIONAL PART GENERATION IS VERY EASY AND
FOLLOWS A LOGICAL PROGRESSION WHEN YOU KNOW HOW TO USE
A FEW ICONS…

going from THIS… to THIS…

Catia is “WINDOWS”
based and ICON
driven…Something
most of us are already to THIS…
used to.
Is as easy as 1…2…3!
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 This is the first screen you will encounter on the way to making your part.
There are a few primary choices you will make here that determine the
outcome of your part…

Part tree

Then, pick SKETCHER

from the toolbar on the
right.

Firstly, choose which plane that

you wish to sketch in.

To keep it simple, pick The PART TREE always tells you where you
the “xy plane” when are. Notice at the top it says PART1 and at the
beginning a part. This bottom it is waiting for you to do something
will help you to draw
in a familiar plane. with PartBody.

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 Now you are in SKETCHER. From here you pick an icon
from the PROFILE toolbar and Click-and-Drag that
shape in the sketcher environment.

Notice the Part Tree reflects the

fact that you are working on
Sketch1.
This is the
PROFILE toolbar.
These shapes are
easy to use and the
icons are self
explanatory.
This square was drawn using
the square icon in the
At this point you are
sketcher environment.
just roughing in the
shape. The exact
dimensions will be
added next if needed.

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 To CONSTRAIN, or dimension a
part, first click on the line to be This is the CONSTRAINTS
done as shown here… toolbar…
Constraints are
picked used throughout
Catia and can be
demanding. A
later chapter will
Defined in dialog box… be devoted just
to them.
Normal constraint…

Auto Constraint…

Animate constraint…
Exit Sketcher…
Click the line and click on Normal
Constraint for the dimension to Once you have all of the required
appear…double click to change the parts dimensioned, you are ready to
dimension that appears… go into 3D mode…

Click EXIT
for Catia to
leave the
sketcher
mode and
enter 3D
modeller…

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 This is the SKETCHER toolbar
from which you can choose a
Once you enter the 3D environment, the part process of building your 3D
profile you were working on takes on an model…here we have chosen
isometric orientation as seen here. PAD

Pad icon

Notice that not all of the

icons shown on the
shortened SKETCHER
toolbar are active. This is
because some other
variable must be satisfied
for Catia to allow it’s use.
We will cover all of the
icons and their uses later.
Once PAD is chosen, the
PAD DEFINITION pop-up
will appear. From here you
define the TYPE and
LENGTH of the pad. You
can also choose to mirror the
pad or reverse it’s direction
from here.
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The pad definition box will cause the limits that have been selected to be applied in
a wire frame representation first. Now if you click on APPLY and then OK, your
wire frame will finally become a solid 3D model.

Notice that on your PARTS TREE, pad1 has been added BEFORE
sketch1 that was already there. This is all part of Catia’s hierarchy
system.

Congratulations! Your FIRST 3D

part!
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